[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: (meteorobs) meteors
In a message dated 96-11-05 11:47:28 EST, you write:
<< Thanks, Joseph. But can't sporadics intersect the radiant?
>>
----------
Thomas,
sporadics can and frequently do intersect a radiant. There are other
characteristics that helps determine whether or not an intersecting meteor
is a shower member or a sporadic to be considered. Namely, the meteors speed
and path length in relation to it's distance from a candidate radiant. There
still will be a certain number of sporadics that will even pass those
qualifications. But the number is very few relatively speaking. The more
active a shower is, the less effect the misidentified sporadics will have on
the overall analysis. It's when the shower activity is very low, does a
misidentified sporadic can give erroneous results. This obviously leads to a
point where visual observations aren't very reliable. This cut off point is
often considered when a shower has a ZHR of 3 during max nite. Anything less
gets closer to chance alignments and happenstance.
George Z.